Chicago was founded in 1833, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land following the Treaty of Chicago. The city became a major transportation and telecommunications hub in North America. Today, the city retains its status as a major hub, both for industry and infrastructure, with O'Hare International Airport being the second busiest airport in the world. In 2008, the city hosted 45.6 million domestic and overseas visitors. It is also the home of Barack Obama and where he made his name in politics before being elected President.
It is globally recognised as the "Windy City" with one small explanation for Chicago being a naturally breezy area is that it is on the shores of Lake Michigan. Another contributing factor is how the city was rebuilt after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871; because the city planners modeled the new streets on the grid system, it resulted in man-made wind tunnels in high density areas, such as the Chicago Loop, where the wind could travel down the columns and rows formed by the buildings, picking up speed. However, regardless of these facts, Chicago is not noted to be significantly windier than any other U.S. city.
We weren't really sure what to expect from here and there was nothing in particular that we wanted to do. Therefore the plan was just to go and take a walk around the Downtown area and see what we could find. The city was great and the buzz and hustle and bustle is something that we have missed and not experienced too much in the last year. The both of us definitely agree that we couldn't live somewhere that is too isolated and we would need a city like this to stay near. We took a walk along the theater district and seen the many famous theatres and also noticed the ancient, but cool sky rail that goes through the city centre. This gave the city a bit of character.
Chicago is also on the shores of Lake Michigan which is part of the Great Lakes collection. the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface (80,545 sq mi) and volume (5,412 cubic miles), holding 20% of the world's surface fresh water. Lake Michigan is the only one located entirely within the United States and is the second largest of by volume and the third largest by surface area. It is incredibe to walk along the promenade that they have created as you would be forgiven for thinking that it was the sea you were looking at. There are many rivers running through the city into the lake and this has resulted in a series of draw-bridges to allow all the boats to sail through the city and into the lake.
There are a lot of nice marinas here and one of the main areas is Navy Peir that was constructed in 1916 as a cargo facility for lake freighters, and warehouses were built up and down the pier. The pier was also designed to provide docking space for passenger excursion steamers. Nowadays it is Chicago's number one tourist attraction with bars, theatres, a floating hotel and carnival rides among the attractions.
It was nice to walk about and see it here during the day and we could imagine how busy and lively it must get during holidays and at weekends. From here we took a walk along the side of the lake for a few miles until we came across a little beach where we sat and relaxed before heading back into town and coming across a huge waterfall that soaked us on the way past as the wind changed direction while we were trying to get some photos!
No comments:
Post a Comment